After a great year of learning, playing, writing and just having fun, everyone is dying for a break. Here’s highlights from the year:

School Swimming Carnival, March: Every March there is an annual school swimming carnival for all the schools in the district to enter. It’s only for primary school students aged from grade 3-6 and is held at the Kardinia swimming pool, outside Simonds Stadium ( The Geelong Cats home ground). Since I was in grade 3, I have entered in the competition in butterfly and backstroke. I got to the regionals ( the next stage of swimming) in butterfly in grade 3 and also this year, grade 5. I was extremely proud of myself since I bet my practise time by 10 seconds!! It was a great experience.

Port Douglas, July-August: For three years now, we’ve been going to Port Douglas, a town about an hour north of Cairns. I just absolutely love it. It has got a beautiful clean, warm beach, one of the best main streets full of delicious food, the best gelato shop ever, and even a shop called Josephine’s!! ( My real name, if you’re wondering) We had endless times full of just swimming in the beach, splashing in the pool, eating at delicious restaurants, and of course, a lot of slurping up the delicious gelato in the sun. The overall best time in Port Douglas of course, was Jungle Surfing through the Daintree Rainforest at Cape Tribulation. It was an amazing experience, but I have to rap things up so if you want more in jungle surfing click here:http://josiesblog.global2.vic.edu.au/2014/07/13/port-douglas-2/

Falls Creek, August-September: Since I was about six years old I started skiing at Falls Creek. This year was one of the best years at the snow. The season apparently the bets snow season for 20 years, with the snow peaking up at 170cm. ( Yes around the world that’s nothing, but Australian snow isn’t the best so that’s like heaven!!) I enjoyed it much more since I was in the level I needed to be in , because I was put in the level with my sister that I was to good for ( I don’t mean to sound fantastic, it was only level 4) . I made friends and on a terrible afternoon, when my sister and I were the only ones, our teacher teamed up with another instructor and we got hot cinnamon donuts. Delicious!!!

AFL Knockout round, Mid September: As you probably know, I’m a big fan of the North Melbourne Kangaroos. So this year Dad brought Sabrina and I up to a finals round that North was playing. They were up against Essendon, possibly their biggest rivals. At half quarter time we were neck and neck. By half time we were 30 points down. A disaster. Three quarter time was a miracle. New recruit Ben Brown ( who we called Ben Orange after his hair.) kicked 3 goals in 11 minutes with a few goals from Boomer Harvey and Lindsay Thomas. The last quarter was intence, to say the least. We were neck and neck until, suddenly, Drew Petrie came out from behind and kicked the 2 last goal. We had won!!! More on the Kangas final season, read:http://josiesblog.global2.vic.edu.au/2014/09/14/go-kangas/

Burley Heads, September: Every year our Nanna brings up 2 grand kids up to Burley Heads for a week. I was so lucky to have gone twice in a row, once with Sabrina ( 2013) but last year I went with my cousin Archie! We had a great time. Archie and I went to WB Movie World in the Gold Coast! My favourite ride was the Wild West Canyon! It was amazing!! We spent all our time at the hotel either playing Uno, having fun in the games room, or swimming in the pool! It was an amazing holiday!!

Hobart ,October: This year I was lucky enough to go to go to Hobart with Mum for a weekend. It was so fun! My favourite thing was going to MONA. It was amazing! There was everything awesome, from a blown up red Porsche, to an exhibition showing the making of poo!! MONA was fantastic. For the full coverage of Tassie read: http://josiesblog.global2.vic.edu.au/2014/11/02/tassie/

So that my year’s best moments, so Thank You to everyone who supported me throughout the year, it was awesome!!

Every two years, the 5/6’s are lucky enough to do a snorkeling program! Well, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, it was our turn. Here’s what we did…

On Monday Mrs Hill’s class ( my class) went a specialpool to practise snorkeling before going to the beach, on Wednesday, and actually go snorkeling. The two instructors, Alex and Peri, taught us how to use flippers ( many of us new how to do this, we’re not that bad!) to duckdive, equalize while duckdiving and what to do in an emergency. We got to keep the snorkel, which was extremly nice considering that the program was free!

On Tuesday the other grade went, so there isn’t much to write about because I didn’t go!

Finally, Wednesday. Our grade was first. We got into our wetsuits, and went down to the beach. It was very calm water, with no waves at all. Everone ran into the water straight away. We went snorkeling at Harry’s Reef, near Harry’s Café. My partner, Jess, and I had a great time. We saw sea urchins, squid eggs, a catshark, lots of fish, heaps of sea stars ( they’re not called starfish, as they are not fish) and about a million types of seaweed and plants.

I had a great time snorkeling and a big Thank You Alex and Peri, who gave up their time to teach us for free, the Borough of Queenscliff for founding the program, and of course, Thank You to Mrs Hill and Mrs Barry for letting us go!!